Wavelength
by Arisa Aihara
Summary: He misplaces his travelling cloak at a most inconvenient time. But that is how he ends up meeting Hikari.
1. Chapter 1

1

* * *

He gets distracted pretty easily, and he's been told that _that's _his greatest weakness. It's not as bad as they make it sound, because really, he knows others with far worse habits that could get them into a deeper mess than 'easily distracted' would ever get him into.

But perhaps they do have a point.

He realizes this when, one day, he misplaces his travelling cloak. He knows that he rarely forgets things like this, and he is pretty sure that he'd hung the piece of clothing on that one funny-looking tree by the river. He would never have taken the cloak off unless he'd find a safe place to put it aside and away from the rushing waters – oh yes, the rushing waters. The reason he is there in the first place.

He'd always seen these silvery lines, this constantly-flowing trickle of clear liquid from afar, and they make such lovely sounds – like a thousand small bells just calling for him and beckoning him to come closer. So he went.

But now, without the cloak, his form is not complete. Without that cloak, he is able to actually feel the smooth, slippery rocks he's standing on and the cold rush of water against his bare feet.

He looks up, and sees that the sun is about to set.

Without the cloak, he cannot go home.

* * *

**A/N: **This was inspired by an old folklore. Let's see if any of you know which one. (But Miss Reader from Pittsburgh is not qualified to hazard a guess, because she already knows.)


	2. Chapter 2

2

* * *

One of his sisters, it turns out, had been telling him the truth all along: if you lose something from home when you come down here, the humans will be able to see you. Well not the _real _you of course, but one of your forms that can actually be seen by their eyes.

(His brother had once gotten so fascinated with how their human eyes worked, that he'd studied and read about them for quite some time, and he'd found out that while most cannot see them if they have their cloaks on, a small percentage of them actually can. Of course, _he _doesn't quite believe in this one, not really – maybe once he has found his cloak, he'd try walking around again and look for any signs of anyone actually seeing him.

But he'd have to _find _his cloak first. Yes.)

Another man walking past the bench by which he stands casts a brief glance at him (this is the third person who is able to see him – everyone else just ignores him) and then down at his bare feet, before frowning and picking up his pace. Perhaps not having any footwear on simply makes humans nervous? He isn't sure, but he tucks this bit of information away in his head and when he gets home, he will ask someone about it.

He has grown rather tired of looking for his cloak down by the river, and has decided to walk. After a short distance, he discovers streets and bridges, and now, he is here. This street seems to be a busy one for a reason, he thinks as he takes in the people around him: most of them are with someone.

There's one boy walking down the street right now with a lovely girl, and they are holding hands, but while the girl is only thinking of how lucky that she's managed to finally get the boy's attention, the boy's thoughts are far from innocent.

There is a group of young adults sitting around one of the tables across the street from him – the men have their neckties loosened around their necks, and the ladies have these footwear with spikes on the heels – and they are drinking and laughing and eating, talking and smiling at each other when the reality is, their heads are filled with nothing but dread.

And then here and there are more and more people – he sees nothing but a sea of people, just _people, _walking up and down the street, some are in a hurry, some are in no hurry at all, some are thinking of human things, like _hunger_ and _sleep_ and '_goddamn, that's one fine ass, I swear to God,' _and '_is he looking at me? Oh no he's looking at me quick what do I do, should I smile, should I hide or should I—'_ and, '_the wife, oh gods, what is she going to think about this?'_

And then there are also things that he doesn't understand – sounds and words that he does not recognize, but instead he gets flashes of images from the humans and it's a little more than he could handle so he pulls himself away from everything for a moment.

And he sees, just in time, something falling out of the pocket of a bald man passing by.

The object is square and black and seems to be made of cow skin and there is something within—

He steps towards the thing and picks it up. He flips it open, and, oh, he knows these – these are hard to come by and humans work hard to get them – some would even _kill _to get them (or so his brother had told him once. He isn't quite sure if that was just a joke – he has to ask more seriously when he gets back home).

So he takes off one of the silver bracelets from his left shoulder, puts it away (and _now _more people can see him), and, once he has recalled the language that the humans here use, calls out, "Excuse me, mister, you've dropped your—"

He forgets what it is called just then, because his brother had once told him that the humans call it _dompet, _but he is sure that the humans here don't call it that, and this is a problem because the bald man doesn't seem to her him, and is disappearing in the sea of humans…

So he takes off another silver bracelet and goes after the man. He touches the man by the shoulder and the man turns, frowning. But the frown turns into something else as he sees him – his eyes widen and his mouth falls open a little.

"Excuse me mister," he tries again, ignoring the man's reaction to seeing one of his forms, "but you've dropped your… You dropped this."

He extends the hand holding the _dompet _towards the man, and this seems to bring the bald man back to reality, for he glances at the object before letting out a small noise of relief.

"Oh, thank you, young man," the man says, and he very nearly laughs at it because if only the bald man knew, he would _not _have called him 'young man.' "Not many people would take the trouble to return someone else's wallet these days."

Ah, _wallet._

He tries saying the word in his head again and again, and is momentarily distracted and so he doesn't realize what the bald man is doing for a while, but when he focuses once more, the man is putting something in his hands and he notices that they are those little paper notes that humans work so hard to get every day.

"Oh no, you don't have to, I don't need this," he says, shaking his head and trying to hand the paper notes back to the bald man. He _really _doesn't need them.

"Don't be silly now – this is yours, you've earned it, son," said the man as he clasps his hands tightly. After a downward glance at his bare feet, the man smiles back at him, says, "Perhaps you can get a pair of decent shoes, eh? But really, thank you – I really have to go, though. Good evening!"

"But I—"

The man is already walking away, and he turns around for a bit to wave, before joining the sea of people and just like that, he is gone.

He sighs and simply stands there with the paper notes in his hands for a while.

"Wallet," he says at last. _"Wallet. _Wallet – it's a wallet."

He kind of likes the way it sounds.

* * *

**A/N: **I had no idea what word he should use to describe a wallet so I just made him call it what I call it.


	3. Chapter 3

3

* * *

He decides to go back to the river for a moment and see if his cloak is there, but it isn't. He sits by the funny-looking tree and stares up at the stars. He is feeling oddly cold, especially his feet, and there is an annoying _ache _in his belly that is slowly growing – he suspects that this is _hunger, _but then waves the idea off because it sounds so human.

He sighs and toys around with the grass for a while, before a tinkling laughter brings his attention back to the busy streets. It was rather late now by human standards, but voices and laughter and that pounding _boom-boom-boom _from one of the, ah, _shops, _is still going, and he wonders if the humans are ever going to return home at all.

With one last look at the river and the trees, he stands up and decides that he would allow himself to get distracted by these humans for a little while before actually looking for his travelling cloak again. He did, after all, descend to get distracted.

And so he makes his way once more towards the streets, towards the sea of humans.

* * *

Humans, he decides, are a little bit infatuated by the whole concept of _love._ Almost every song that he has heard so far as he passes by the shops is more or less about love. He also decides that his siblings haven't been _completely _lying to him after all – being the youngest means that he is the least experienced, and therefore more inclined to being tricked. They _have_ lied and tricked him before, so it isn't his fault that he doesn't completely believe them.

But now that he's seen some human things, he begins to realize that his siblings have been right about some things.

"Humans want everything, really," one of his sisters had said to him one day. "Health, wealth, happiness. Some humans already have these things, but then they want to be the _only _ones who are healthy and wealthy and happy." And he remembers how his sister had sighed and descended down to a man who was summoning her as if his life depended completely on her presence. He remembers watching from afar as his sister took over a lovely human girl and planted a part of her into the girl and, to this day, whenever he glances down at that particular area where the lovely human girl and the once-desperate man live, he can still see the glowing red threat that his sister had used to wrap and bind the girl's heart to the man.

He sometimes wonders how the humans even know about them in the first place.

Just as he is thinking about that one woman who had summoned Father and asked him to do her a _big _favour, he smells the aroma that is positively burning coal. He stops and turns, breathes in the faint smell of smoke before closing his eyes. The ache in his belly is back, and now he wants nothing more but to consume the smoke and coal.

He is about to follow the smell of smoke when he notices that someone is looking at him. This is the fourth person to be able to see him without the travelling cloak, and this time he is impressed – because the human girl is nowhere near him. She is looking at him from across the busy street, and he wonders if she could still see him with the cloak on.

_If _he has the cloak with him.

He groans and stares up at the night sky. He is sure that his siblings are having a fun time watching him walk around aimlessly among the humans, and he is sure that they know how he is very much scared of Father's wrath. If Father knows that he has lost the cloak because he got _distracted…_

Just then he thinks he hears his brother's mocking laughter, and he scowls and thinks, "You will regret laughing at me."

When he looks again, the girl can still see him.

This, he thinks, is fascinating.

* * *

**A/N: **I just don't get why I have to learn about the urinary system when I'm targeting to become an audiologist...


	4. Chapter 4

4

* * *

After trying and failing to trace the source of the burning coal, he decides to get closer to the girl. He finds her again easily because she is in one of those shops where everyone is lining up to buy some type of food that is flat, round and looks soft and comes in many different colours (and he wonders what it tastes like, and whether he would like it more than he likes burning coal).

Sure enough, she sees him the moment he is in front of the small shop, and she even smiles at him (albeit a little uncertainly). He smiles back, and decides to take off the two silver bracelets again just to see how she would react.

She doesn't react any differently, and this intrigues him, because it only means that she sees no difference between his two forms.

(Now he is almost certain that even if he has the cloak, she would still be able to see him.)

When the crowd in front of the shop thins a little, he decides to approach the girl. She is behind the tall marble slab of a table, and this, he knows, means that she is working there to get those paper notes, and he knows that if he is standing on the other side of the tall table, he is to be the one to give her the paper notes in exchange for one of those flat, round and colourful things (which, he would soon learn, are called _donuts_).

"Hi, good evening," she says with a smile when he is standing close enough to the table, "welcome to the _Big Apple_*, how may I help you?"

"Hello," he says and, if his physical form doesn't have any effects on her, his voice most definitely does. Her smile falters a little and her mouth falls open just a little, just like the bald man with the _wallet _before. He smiles a little at her and discovers that her name literally means _light, _and he likes that, so he looks up at those pictures hanging behind her and does a quick mental scan of the writings there – after cross-checking the letters with the archive of symbols in his head, the words finally begin to make sense and he says, "What's a _Passion Vanilla_?"

"Well," says Light – says Hikari, and she is smiling as if this is all very amusing, "it's basically just vanilla milkshake."

He has no idea what a vanilla milkshake is, either, but he merely hums a low note – and is pleased to see that it is his voice, not his appearance, that affects Hikari the most. So he looks at the _donuts _and asks her another question: "How many of these can I get with…with this?"

He shows her one of the paper notes that the bald man had given him, and Hikari smiles.

"You can buy three boxes of our Dozen Donuts set and about five ofthat vanilla milkshake, if you want."

And now he sees why she is smiling, because even he knows that a single human being does not need that much to satisfy his hunger. And now he, too, is smiling at his own silly question.

"Well then, I shall have one box and one, ah, vanilla milkshake? Please."

And her smile widens and he thinks he sees her face going pink just before she turns around to tell another girl to prepare the vanilla milkshake (and he shall have to ask his brother about this curious milkshake, too, once he is home).

Hikari then returns with a box and asks, "Okay, which donuts would you like to have, sir?"

"Umm. How many should I get?" he asks.

"It's...the Dozen Donuts set," Hikari says, as if that should explain everything, but it doesn't. Not quite. "That means you should get twelve donuts," she points out after a pause. So he needs to pick twelve of these human treats? Even though he is sure that it would taste nothing like smoke and coal, he thinks he can give it a try.

"Two of these, then, please," he says, pointing at a random orange-coloured donuts simply because the colour reminds him of the setting sun, and Hikari complies, extracting two of those expertly and placing them into the box. He then sees a label that reads _Sunspot _and he picks two of those donuts as well simply because of the word _sun. _ Another batch of donuts next to the _Sunspot _ones has patterns on them that remind him strongly of the constellation near which his despicable Great Aunt had died, so he picks four of those, just for fun.

(He really hated this Great Aunt of his, and so did everyone else, so.)

He needs four more to complete the box, but doesn't quite know which ones to pick, so he is quiet for a moment. After a quick glance into Hikari's thoughts, he discovers that she favours the colour pink, so he picks one _Strawberry Shock _and one _Pink Twister._

"I need two more, don't I?" he says, and Hikari nods. "Which ones would you have picked?" he asks, and wonders if the humans would stuff burning coals into the donuts for him. He can _make_ them do that for him, of course, but that would scare Hikari.

He rather likes Hikari, so he doesn't want to scare her.

"The _Jon Lemon _one," she says, grinning. "Because the pun is so ridiculous, it works – _and _it tastes great. But I wouldn't recommend _Ono Oreo._"

There is a human joke there that he isn't getting, because at the moment, Hikari's head is filled with images of a human man and woman – the man is dead, and used to be one of those humans who sing about love, among other things, but the woman is still alive, and – oh, she comes from this very land – he digs deeper and finds out that the man was named John Lennon and the Ono woman is his widow, and he _still _doesn't get the joke.

But he says, "I'll have two _Jon Lemons _then," all the same.

Hikari places two of them in the box and cheerfully announces that his milkshake would soon be ready. He waits patiently at the side as Hikari entertains a human female who is carrying a little human boy in her arms. After a while, a different girl comes to the front with his milkshake and says a random number that he needs to pay.

This girl, unlike Hikari, is very much affected by his physical appearance. While he enjoys the swirling thoughts of _'oh wow, look at his eyes,' 'how is he even real?' _and, _'I've never seen him around before – will he come here again?' _coming from the girl, he is sure that she would not be able to see him if he puts on the two silver bracelets again.

He smiles at her all the same as she hands him his food and some paper notes and these small, flat, round metal pieces – he is momentarily confused as to why she is giving him more paper notes, but then Hikari says, "Thank you, please come again!" to the human lady, and he forgets his own confusion for a moment.

Hikari realizes that he is looking, and her face turns pink slightly. She bows in his direction and thanks him, tells him to please come again. He smiles back, but says nothing. He takes the box and the milkshake, and walks away.

* * *

**A/N: **The_Big Apple_ is quite famous for its donuts where I live. It hasn't opened a branch in Japan yet (I think), but I like their donuts so for the sake of this fanfic...let's pretend that it _has _reached the Land of the Rising Sun, eh?


End file.
